


No Pets in the Bedroom

by SirKai



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Domestic, M/M, Pets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-10 08:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirKai/pseuds/SirKai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amon faces his greatest threat yet as another challenger enters the ring in competition for his Lieutenant's heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Pets in the Bedroom

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Veitstanz for all of the wonderful storybending we've done, and for her invaluable input on this piece!  
> http://veitstanz.tumblr.com/post/27588459458/that-headcanon-where-lieu-has-a-pet-kai-and-i  
> http://veitstanz.tumblr.com/post/26412798269/more-storybending-with-sirkai-headcanon-says-that

“Lieutenant!” I called out, kicking the door closed as I entered the apartment. My fingers were going numb from pressing the bag of ice against my exposed neck. I thought that the worst of my day had passed. I was about to be proven very wrong as I walked into the kitchen. “I pulled a muscle in my ne-”

I stopped mid-step near the stove. Some horrifying, vile amalgamation of two things plenty horrifying and vile on their own was scraping a pair of its far-too-many legs at the bottom of the refrigerator.

“Nooo Amon, you just finished eating.”

I slowly stepped around the corner of the counter like I was entering a war zone. There he was, my Lieutenant, kneeling on the floor and extending his arm to the creature. And he was clearly not about to smash it, as sense would commonly dictate.

“What did you just call that?” I asked, looming over him.

“I called her ‘Amon,’” the Lieutenant said. He beamed up at me, and then fixed his gaze back to the vermin on my kitchen floor. “See the pattern on her face? It reminded me of your mask.”

I glared at its tilting head, adorned with a mass of pitch black eyeballs, grotesque gray fur and crooked, twitching mandibles. I couldn’t see the resemblance.

“...what is it and why is it in our kitchen?”

“It’s a spiderrat. The recruits found her today when we were renovating the cells.” 

“And why, of all options, did you not leave the thing where you found it? Or kill it?”

“She wasn’t hurting anyone, Amon. She was hungry too.”

“I’m hungry, Lieutenant.”

“We have pantries and a fridge full of food. You’re not helpless.” The Lieutenant rasped the floor lightly with his knuckles. The creature skittered, like it was some sort of... spider-thing. Appropriate enough. All eight of those hideous, hairy legs rapidly tapped across the polished hardwood. It crawled over his hand and up his arm. The pest rested on my Lieutenant’s shoulder as he scratched its face affectionately with one of his fingers. “You’re quite the quick learner, aren’t you Amon?” Lieutenant praised.

“Stop calling that _thing_ ‘Amon,’” I spat. 

The Lieutenant didn’t even look at me as he replied. “But that’s her name,” he said, leaning his face in closer as if to nuzzle the thing.

I resisted the urge to vomit against the inside of my mask. A volatile gag would have had to do.

“Don’t listen to him,” Lieutenant warned it. “I think he’s scared of spiderrats.”

“I am not even going to acknowledge that with a response, Lieutenant.”

And he didn’t say anything back. He was completely fixed upon that arachnid monster nesting at his shoulder. He had ignored me. My _Lieutenant_ was _ignoring_ me.

I discarded the bag of ice into the sink and sat alone at the kitchen table that night, listening to my Lieutenant prattle endlessly to his new rodent spider- _thing_. My mask was tilted up slightly, just enough to make room for the soggy canned vegetables I fed myself. The only thing I could hear over my rough chewing was all the chirping and skittering and repulsive acclaim surrounding my housemate’s new _pet_.

It was probably the longest and most unpleasant dinner of my life.

After I swallowed the last bite of my meal, I dropped the used chopsticks into the can and left the remains to fester on the dining table. I decided I was going to try and turn in early tonight.

“Amon, aren’t you going to clean up after yourself?” Lieutenant asked from across the kitchen.

My hand rested on the bedroom door knob. I sneered at him from over my shoulder. “Are you talking to me, or _it?_ ”

He laughed. It was a brief chuckle, but a laugh nonetheless. Now my Lieutentant was _laughing_ at me? 

“I think you’re just jealous, Amon.”

I balled my hands into fists and dug at the insides of my palms with my nails. The Lieutenant was fortunate to be blind to my expression, because in retrospect, I don’t think there are words to describe how furious I must have looked. At this junction I was still debating in my head whether this was all some cruel, horribly unfunny joke, or truly a genuine matter occurring in my own kitchen. The former would have been preferable to an immeasurable degree.

I took refuge in the bedroom, door closed and my body tucked tightly under the warm sheets. I kept myself propped up against the headboard, arms folded defiantly and staring into the wall. I did my best to try and ignore the muffled sounds of apparent glee and excitement from the other side of the bedroom door. The Lieutenant knew that I couldn’t read well with my mask, and instead of reading aloud to me, he was playing with some wretched scourge.

But he would have to come to bed eventually. And eventually did finally come, although at least ten or twenty minutes later than I would have liked. The act of silent brooding becomes dull rather quickly.

“Sorry that took so long,” Lieutenant greeted as he entered the bedroom. “Amon can be a handful.”

I cringed like he had just slammed a door on my fingers. “Do not call it that.”

He merely replied with a smirk, and followed it with a shamelessly coaxing remark as he climbed into bed next to me. “Earlier you said you had pulled a muscle?”

“I’m fine. I imagine I could do without your hands after what you’ve touched today.” I managed to keep myself from looking directly at my Lieutenant, instead opting for peering disapprovingly at him from the corners of my eyes. 

“Then I guess I can skip tonight’s chapter of Kyoshi?” he taunted. 

“Of course you can’t.”

“Hahaha, very well.” Lieutenant retrieved the thick, hardbound book from his bedside table and opened it to the crimson bookmark. 

No sooner had he recited the first few sentences of the chapter, were we interrupted by a pair of thin hairy legs peeking over the edge of the bed. The monster climbed up, revealing its detestable body and the six other equally abominable legs. The muscles tensed up through out my legs. The image of sharing the same _bed_ with such a creature would generally illicit a much more violent response.

Lieutenant leaned over the book with widened eyes as he spotted it. “You’re smarter than I thought. See?” He leaned in towards me. “She missed me.”

“Get that thing out of our bedroom,” I ordered, narrowing my eyes at the Lieutenant.

He seemed to recoil slightly, and glanced back at the creature creeping its way towards him across the sheets.

“Okay,” he said calmly. The Lieutenant slipped out from under the bed sheets and scooped up the spiderrat in his arms. “Amon will join me on the couch then.” And then he left the room and closed the door behind him. The click of the door settling into its frame felt like the final period in a sequence of ellipses following some surreal dream. I sat there in bed, waiting for some sort of punchline or conclusion, but minutes of total stillness passed before I realized that this was it: _I_ was the one sleeping alone tonight as punishment.

It must have been some kind of self-realization. Overcoming an existential crisis, some would say. Such psychological deficiencies should always be reserved for the conflicted and the insecure. I have never been complicated. I avoid complications. I despise complexity. Obstacles move aside for me. I order intricacies to untangle themselves.

But now my Lieutenant had attached himself to a very hairy, ugly, and disgusting eight-legged problem, and he was forcing me to be involved in it.

Damn that pest.

After some well spent time of brooding deliberation, I left the safety of my bed and returned to the outside living hall. I briskly marched to the couch and stood over it. 

The Lieutenant was lying on his back, surrendering his chest to that spidery blight. His blue eyes glared up at me with an expectant pout, like I owed him something.

“Lieutenant, come back to bed,” I said. “This has gotten out of hand.”

“I agree,” he said coldly.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

Then Lieutenant returned his attention to the spiderrat, and teased it with the ends of his mustache like string to a ferretcat. That was another part of his body that was assuredly never touching me again.

“Fine,” I conceded.

Lieutenant looked back up at me, his expression more promising than it was a moment ago.

“It is... unfortunate that you did this-”

“Amon.”

I sighed, and dragged a hand over my mask. “It is regrettable that you have harbored yourself on the couch tonight. Will that do?”

“Warmer.”

I straightened my posture and raised my chest. The least I could do was appear respectable amidst such weakness.

“ _I_ regret... that I will be alone in our bed tonight. Is that sufficient?”

The Lieutenant inhaled a lengthy breath, and gently lifted the vermin from his chest with both hands. “Yes, that will do.” He rose to his feet and put the spiderrat back on his shoulder. “Let me make a bed for her and I’ll be inside shortly.”

I slouched my shoulders and exhaled another tiresome sigh. Negotiating with my Lieutenant felt like bloodbending a herd of hippobison. 

But, however bitter it might have been, it was a victory, and one that I relished internally as I changed into my nightly robe. Lieutenant was locking the bedroom door behind him as I returned from the bathroom.

“You do know you’re still reading tonight, right?” I asked as I nestled underneath the sheets.

“Of course,” Lieutenant agreed. 

There was a moment of mutual silence as he sat the heavy book into his lap and flipped it open to the marked page.

“You’re not actually going to keep that thing, are you?”


End file.
